Can You Guess Which Digital Marketing Tools are Exactly Like School Supplies?

July 31, 2017

It’s that time of year again, and kids (and their parents) are getting anxious to go back to school. A new school year means new back-to-school supplies and an all-day shopping trip to get everything you need on your school supplies list. How exciting! But what does any of that have to do with digital marketing?

What if marketers had a similar list that gave them all the necessary digital marketing tools they need? We’ve compiled a list of digital marketing tools that is shockingly similar to a student’s school supplies list. Double check to make sure you’ve got the supplies you need for an excellent digital marketing strategy.

Google Analytics is The Same as a Ruler

Measuring our success in Google Analytics reminds us of how kids use rulers to measure distances on a map in geography and create projects in shop class. We can calculate sessions, users, pageviews and much more in Google Analytics. This shows if our clients’ websites are growing in popularity or if we have a problem to solve. Measuring our goals in Google Analytics is important so we know that we are helping our clients surpass their goals month over month.

Scheduling Tools are Just Like Weekly Planners

It’s almost impossible to function in a marketing agency without a schedule. If your digital marketing strategy doesn’t include a scheduling tool, you might want to reconsider. Here at Blue Compass, we use SmartSheet to keep track of everyone's daily tasks and see who has time to help out with additional projects.

The same thing goes for kids trying to keep track of all of their homework assignments, exams and other school activities. A weekly planner is an essential item to include with your child’s back to school supplies. You don’t want them forgetting about soccer practice, or worse, a test!

Social Media is Similar to a Bulletin Board

Bulletin boards are the place for kids to shine. This is the special area for their best work that their moms and teachers are proud to show off. Kids get excited when they see their best artwork or an A+ test displayed proudly on a bulletin board. In the digital world, we treat our social media platforms like an online bulletin board.

Social media is one of our favorite digital marketing tools, as it’s where we get to show off our best work. Award recognitions, new blogs and big events are announced on our social media outlets because we’re proud of our work and want to share with others. With so many social media platforms, there’s plenty of opportunities to display our accomplishments.

Social Advertisements are Comparable to Highlighters

Kids love highlighters because they come in bright colors and make important information highly visible on a page full of notes, which is pretty similar to advertising on social media. Most platforms have become a “pay-to-play” medium, meaning if you don’t put a little cash behind your content, not as many people will see it.

We use social advertising tools to target a relevant audience and make sure more people are seeing our great content. In the same way a highlighter makes words more noticeable, ads help our articles stand out among other content.

Google Docs is Similar to a Pencil and Eraser

Just like kids use their pencils to express their thoughts and share their work, Google Docs allows us to write blogs and create meaningful content to share with our followers and fellow digital marketers. The only difference between the two is we use a keyboard to jot down our ideas instead of a pencil or pen.

Without Google Docs, it would be much harder to communicate ideas internally and check each other's work. The suggesting feature allows us to make revisions when proofreading a blog that was written by a co-worker, similar to an eraser. The writing process requires multiple people, writing and erasing, to get the best final product.

Coding Tools are Comparable to Notebooks

Coding is the behind-the-scenes language of a website that makes everything function
and look nice when
you see the final product. It can look kind of confusing if you’re not an expert, but it’s very helpful when creating a magnificent website! Atom and Sublime are a couple of coding programs our web developers like to use as their preferred tools.

A child’s notebook can be very similar to coding because this is where kids take notes, doodle, jot down ideas and practice problems they’re learning in class. We don’t always know what their notes or doodles mean, but those notes help them get through to the final result of a project or test, just like coding creates the perfect web design.

Photoshop is Just Like Crayons

When it’s art time, kids get the opportunity to express their creativity with colored pencils, paints and most importantly, crayons! Some kids love it while others are not a fan, but using crayons during art class and including them on your school supplies list every year is a must. We have a feeling that art class was a favorite of our graphic designers.

Our graphic designers no longer use crayons, but have graduated to Photoshop instead. Photoshop allows them to design logos, enhance pictures and create social imagery for our clients. They’re still using their creativity every day, but sleek, artsy photos work better for our digital marketing strategy than crayon works of art.

Double Check Your Supply List

Now that we’ve compared our list of digital marketing tools to the kids’ school supplies list, make sure you have everything you need; not just for your kids, but for your marketing plan as well. If you have all these marketing supplies on hand, you’re sure to have a great digital marketing strategy that will help you stay ahead of your competition.

If you think you’re missing some of these essential digital marketing tools, Blue Compass can help! Our team of web developers, graphic designers, digital marketing strategists and account executives will work with you to create a digital marketing strategy that works for you.